Brussels, 09/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - The member countries of the Agadir Agreement (Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan) intend to create a Business Council - the objective of which will be to boost “horizontal” business between these countries. “Trade between the countries that signed the Agadir Agreement accounts for just 2% of the overall trade of each of the member countries of this agreement”, said Miriem Bensalah-Chaqroun, the head of the General Confederation of Moroccan Companies (CGEM), at the first business forum of the South-East Mediterranean region that was organised in Skhirat on Wednesday 4 November by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
“So it is up to us to take the whole measure of the missed opportunities and to get our policies to move towards greater economic integration”, she said, adding that this Business Council would be created in December. A meeting will be held in Casablanca in December.
“At the beginning, the initial years of implementation saw good performances. But then from 2011 a significant downturn took place. We can't say the results are good”, said the executive president of the Agadir Agreement, Elaid Mahsoussi, in an interview with Moroccan media last April.
The decline is reportedly due to several factors - the main one being the political upheaval in the region in 2011. The economic crisis in the eurozone is also said to have had an influence on the results. (Original version in French by Fathi B'Chir)